Unable to focus, procrastinating for weeks over projects and homework for tests, she would leave a mountain of work to the last minute.

Finally, feeling so stressed and overwhelmed, she sought medical help and was diagnosed with ADHD in her third year of undergraduate studies. Her situation has improved greatly since and she encourages others to seek help, she said.

"It’s so daunting," she said of feeling so overwhelmed.

"You can’t even start thinking how you can overcome it," the 23-year-old student from the Toronto area said. She wanted to speak anonymously because of concern her disorder may affect her future law career prospects.

She described her plight in class, saying she was falling behind, unable to cope and even begin school work and feeling her situation would never end.

Her experience proves especially timely with the approach of exams in December at the University of Windsor and universities elsewhere, say those involved with helping and treating people with ADHD.

The intense study period can prove especially difficult for students who may be away from home for the first time and removed from their support system.

But there’s much help available online and from the University of Windsor.

Dr. Corina Velehorschi, a Windsor psychiatrist and consultant with the University of Windsor’s student health services, said the university offers "wonderful" resources.

She added ADHD also has one of the highest success rates for treatment in medicine.

Heidi Bernhardt, national director and founder of the Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada based near Toronto, said the organization offers "tons of resources." They include 30 hours of video presentations with experts.

While many may associate ADHD with the young fidgety kid who can’t sit still, she said it can continue into the teens and through adulthood.

As a mother with three grown sons with ADHD who attended university, Bernhardt appreciates the situation for students with exams on the horizon.

Because ADHD can involve what Bernhardt calls the "executive functioning skills" such as organization, time management and problem solving, ADHD can affect students’ ability to complete assignments and meet deadlines.

Away from home, parents aren’t available to follow up on school work and make sure students get to class.

Bernhardt said recent efforts to raise awareness about ADHD with university students may explain why they’re struggling.

"They may be overwhelmed. They don’t know what’s happening to them. And they’re told to just try harder," she said.

But students may spin their wheels, fail and drop out, Bernhardt said.

She hears from students and parents and their situations can be heartbreaking.

"Parents are in tears, parents are in denial. We are constantly trying to raise awareness."

Bernhardt said it can be difficult for students to be their own best advocates. But they need to talk to student health and counselling services at university.

Diagnosis and treatment are much better in recent years, Bernhardt said.

For a long time, researchers missed girls because they didn’t see the hyperactivity so commonly associated with ADHD. "But you see a lot of anxiety and depression in girls later on," Bernhardt said.

Velehorschi sees bright students who are failing, have low self-esteem, feel overwhelmed, stupid and unable to keep up.

"Their brain cannot make the bridge between knowledge and the execution of that knowledge," Velehorschi said. "They lack the neurotransmitters in their brain between knowledge and execution."

Exam time can be especially difficult. They have a hard time sitting still and may read a test question over and over, Velehorschi said. In turn, they may overcompensate, studying intensely two or three times longer.

They lack focus and don’t have an appreciation of time, so they procrastinate and get distracted. A project due in two weeks falls by the wayside as the student still thinks it can be completed in the last couple of weeks.

The University of Windsor law student said she lacked the basic study skills so many of her peers take for granted.

"They don’t know what they have to do," Velehorschi said. And besides medicinal drugs, treatment also involves teaching them skills. At exam time, they may need a quiet environment, extra time and breaks.

Said the second-year law student: "I can’t imagine not being diagnosed and being here in university."

twhipp@windsorstar.com

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Misconceptions and myths abound about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, according to the Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada

Here are some facts to dispel the myths:

- ADHD is a genuine neurobiological disorder that was clinically observed more than 100 years ago. All of the major medical associations and government health agencies recognize this fact because the scientific evidence is overwhelming.

- ADHD is under-diagnosed and under-treated.

- ADHD occurs in five to 12 per cent of school-age children worldwide.

- ADHD is the most common mental health disorder in children.

- Eighty per cent maintain the diagnosis into adolescence.

- Sixty per cent are still affected by core symptoms in adulthood.

- Research shows that ADHD is most likely inherited.

- New research shows that problems with executive functioning, such as organization and time management, greatly affect those with ADHD.

- ADHD is a problem with regulating attention not just inattention.

- Parenting styles do not cause ADHD.

- Diets and limiting food additives and sugar will not cure ADHD.

- Treatment for ADHD should always be multi-modal.

- Using medication for ADHD does not lead to future drug abuse and may decrease the chance that adolescents with ADHD self medicate.

- Children and adolescents with untreated ADHD are at a greater risk for:

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